one, two... THREE baby meerkats! (12-13 day old pups)

Watch in high quality if possible! Three very young meerkat pups see the surface world... possibly for the first time.
(they've been above ground before but not with eyes open)

Turn on the annotations for some more details.

These pups are 12-13 days old. (date of birth ca. July 13-14) They have only recently opened their eyes and are not big and strong enough yet to come out of the burrow on their own - their mother carried them out.

She has been carrying her babies out of the burrow since right after their birth which is not what is normally done, usually they stay underground for the first 2-3 weeks until they are strong enough to climb up the opening of the burrow by themselves.

In the previous days we had always seen the mother with only one pup that she carried all over the enclosure, so we assumed that there was only one surviving pup from the litter.

Today to our great surprise and joy we found that there are three pups!

They spent quite some time in front of the burrow in a protected area of the enclosure, usually surrounded and huddled by several adults (all other 5 adult members of the group are males who are younger than and unrelated to the dominant female). They were never alone for more than a few seconds. In the late afternoon the mother carried them back to the burrow one by one - their first (not quite voluntary) excursion to the surface was over.
However these pups are strong enough already that the time spent above ground doesn't seem to be a danger for them anymore (newborn pups can dehydrate, or develop hypo- or hyperthermia very quickly, and should be brought overground only in case of emergency... viewers of meerkat manor will remember some tense burrow move scenes initiated by Yossarian...)

The males sometimes seemed to be quarrelling over the privilege of who gets to take care of the pups.

All in all this saga is making our local meerkat enclosure just as suspense-laden as any episode of meerkat manor :)
These meerkats live at the Mundenhof, Freiburg, Germany - an animal park with free entry for visitors.
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photos
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see here

http://div.crws.net/2008/2008-08-24.22/
http://div.crws.net/2008/2008-08-02/
http://div.crws.net/2008/2008-07-31/
http://div.crws.net/2008/2004-2008/

also see some photos of this meerkat mob at
http://www.fotocommunity.de/pc/pc/mypics/614910/startpic/8
-there are several other pages with photos of these kats!
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SHAMELESS PLUG
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the life and times of these meerkats have already inspired a product line of meerkat merchandise - handmade, some of them with individual depictions of some of the characters - the "My-Meerkat" product line by gokuki at Dawanda - http://en.dawanda.com/shop/gokuki
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See one of the pups from this litter at a few days old here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWU6MHXo-Hc
All meerkat videos in my profile show the same group except where it is noted otherwise. We have been visiting this group regularly for more than six years.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• meerkat
• baby
• erdmännchen
• suricate
• mundenhof
• freiburg
• pups
• niedlich
• cute
• furry
• small
• tierkind
• tiergehege
• surykatki
• erdmännchenbaby
• animal
• park
• möfzi
• jolly
• roger
• dawanda
• gokuki
• mymeerkat
• my-meerkat
• manor
• cuddly
• mammals

[londono3]

but this is really odd behavior for a mother meerkat is it not ?

[nyatnagarl]

Yes, this is not the behavior you would expect in the wild. normally the pups would stay underground for a longer time; this meerkat mother kept carrying them out from day one. It was her first surviving litter and growing up in captivity she had no experience. I've heard from other enclosures that similar behaviours have been observed.

[nyatnagarl]

yes indeed, it isn't every day that one can see this! we noticed that the dominant female was pregnant and since she started getting really well-rounded we were visiting regularly :)

What we don't have is a burrow-cam like in meerkat manor. But as long as we see many of the meerkats spending most of the time in the burrow everything is probably OK. we visited again today and briefly saw one of the pups in good condition. It will probably be another week before they really come out on their own.

[alaitain]

shows how much care and love the the meerkats have for each other and watching over each other. protecting. now if humans would do the same.

[scared121]

LOL let me out aaaarrrrhhhh

[scared121]

I AM DYING....... OVER SOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCHHH CUTTTTTTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEEEENEE­EEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSS

[midsaint776]

beautiful little critters

[lclagu]

Their burrow is probably infested of thicks and mites, thats why they're taking the pups out.

[kuramafan58]

Aw, how cute! Those babies looked like they were having fun.

[Meerkatsrock1]

OMG they are soooooooooooo cute lucky i love meerkats an i never got to see one and they are my fav i love frickin meerkats =] this is a cute vid of really cute animals!!!!

[tamafan13]

like me too i love all animals even bugs but im obsessed with meerkats so i guess it is my favorite heh heh well thats all.

[tamafan13]

i love meerkats and soon were gonna have them in our zoo when the african exibit is ready i cant wait to see them pu close it will be so aweosme i love watching meerkat manor all the time and i love to see them on tv but up close is aweosme yay i probably wont want to leave well not probably i wont want to leave the meerkats i even am collecting meerkat figures now yay well thats all.

[londono3]

I know they're not endangered but keeping them in zoo's for our benefit is wrong if this type of behavior is observed. With the excellent TV programs bringing us up close meerkat life then why do we need to put meerkats in zoo's.